A great work of art, if it accomplishes anything, serves to remind us, or let us say to set us dreaming, of all that is fluid and intangible. Which is to say, the universe. IT cannot be understood; it can only be accepted or rejected. If accepted we are revitalized, if rejected, we are diminished. . . . If we accept ourselves as completely, the work of art, in fact the whole world would die of malnutrition. . . . The art of dreaming when wide awake will be in the power of everyman one day. Long before that books will cease to exist, for when men are wide awake and dreaming their power of communication (with one another and with what moves them) will be so enhanced as to make writing seem like the harsh and raucous squawks of an idiot . . .

--Henry Miller, "Why Don't You Try To Write?" in Thomas H. Moore, ed., Henry Miller on Writing (New York: New Directions, 1964) p. 23.